What Is the Strongest Known Material?

This new type of metallic glass incorporates a small amount of palladium, a hard metal element with an ultra-high "volume shear rate" that offsets the unavoidable fragility of glass materials. ^[1]

Super glass

This new type

The research results mark the first strategic use of metallic glass manufacturing. This process can be used to make stronger and tougher glass products. This research result has been identified and tested in the US Department of Energy's Science Office, and the National Science Foundation supports manufacturing at Caltech. ^[1]

"Because of the high volumetric shear rate metal containing palladium, the energy required to form a shear band is much lower than the energy required to break the shear band into a crack," Rich explained. "This leads to this kind of glass. It has super plasticity and can resist huge impact forces, which can only bend it, not crack it. "

Rich is a co-appointed project leader of the Department of Materials Science at Berkeley Labs and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. The findings are published in the journal Nature, and Professor Rich is also one of the authors. ^[1]

"The game we play with cracks is to extend the extent of the cracks as much as possible. Through other synthetic methods of glass and metal, the entire material has stronger plasticity changes before fracture." Rich said, "In addition, palladium can provide excellent The unusual shielding ability has a magical effect on the open cracks of amorphous materials. This gives our metallic glass a toughness comparable to the hardest metal known. This strong and tough The rare combination of fit, or damage-resistant, ductility, goes beyond the toughest and strongest materials we know. "

The original sample of the new glass material was a mixture of trace palladium containing phosphorus, silicon, and germanium to obtain a glass rod with a diameter of about one millimeter. Later, researchers at the California Institute of Technology added silver to increase the thickness of the glass rod to Six millimeters. The size of this metallic glass is limited and must be quickly cooled or "quenched" to obtain the final amorphous liquid metal.

"Our experience is that in order to make metallic glass, we need at least five elements. In this way, when we cool the material, it doesn't know what crystalline structure is sorted, so it has an amorphous state." Rich said.

"The traditional view is that the strength and toughness of materials are a pair of mutually exclusive properties. This makes our metallic glass irritating to challenge people's intelligence. We are going against the current and put the hard properties of glass on the metal Damage-resistant ductile envelope. " ^[1]